Tuesday, September 28, 2010

I Hope Jenny McCarthy Is Proud of Herself

Whooping Cough is sweeping the U.S. in a way that hasn't been seen in decades. In California, nine babies have died. Indiana has more cases than it's seen since 1986.

The most vulnerable victims are babies too young to be fully vaccinated, like the ones who died in California. In the past, they were protected by a firewall of vaccinated people around them. That is why public schools require vaccinations -- not just to keep your kid from getting sick and missing school, but to keep your kid from spreading contagious diseases to those who are too young or too immune-compromised to be vaccinated.

In recent years, a discredited quack has spread misinformation blaming vaccines for the rise in autism diagnoses. D-list celebrity Jenny McCarthy, whose son has autism, has bought into the quackery and used her celebrity soap-box to brainwash other parents into not vaccinating their kids.

15 comments:

You had me until the last line. I'd say more like letting Al Gore influence energy policy.

Fact is, letting any celeb influence anything is ridiculous whether it's vaccinations, energy policy, economics, the environment or war. If they had anything other than the ability to play a child's game of dress up, they'd have a real job.

I think the increase has more to do with expense, people who come here from other countries, legally or not in addition to tourists,(especially in CA) laziness and maybe down the list, celeberties like McCarthy.Quacks have been out there for years, and if they can make a buck and or fame, they will continue to be out there.

One of the articles mentioned that, in California at least, Hispanics have a higher than average vaccination rate. Vaccines are provided for free to poor people (because of the public health benefit). Remember the mumps outbreak in Iowa several years ago? There were similar trends involved. Laziness and complacency certainly play a part, but it seems that a significant number of parents bought into the anti-MMR-vaccine quackery.

I believe you are spot-on with you last comment, Jill. Anecdotally, my daughter has 4 children and many friends with children. She is continually amazed by how many friends and acquaintances have bought into this. This is not unlike the early 80's when there were multiple stories of botched circumcisions in the Southeast. You will find many parents chose to not circumcise their sons because of it. It's a herd mentality.

Funny thing about circumcisions is that their popularity in the middle of the 20th century came to be because of similar mob-mentality. It soon became a must for American males, even though doctors acknowledged it was a meaningless operation.

It was not until recent reports that circumcision correlates with lower rates of HIV that medical organizations started touting it as a health measure.

Actually, Sofa, it is the global warming deniers who are putting religious beliefs over scientific observations. There is room for debate over how much of the phenomenon is due to man-made carbon emissions, and even more room for debate over whether any proposed climate-change legislation will have the desired effect. However, those who deny that the climate is warming overall (global yearly average temperatures, rather than cherry-picking the few spots/periods of cooling), are engaging in Wikiality.

NOAA has found that the last year was the warmest on record, based on plenty of data. I would have more respect for the deniers' arguments if you didn't cite crazy people like Viscount Monckton. If the earth isn't warming, how did that Dutch ship navigate the northwest passage last year? Why are the Russians and the Canadians fighting over the north pole? As Stephen Colbert would say, the market has spoken.

The Northwest Passage has been open in the past (BTW, it is currently closed as Arctic ice is expanding rapidly). The North Pole is strategic from a military standpoint and has been "fought over" since Nautilus made the underwater passage in the 50's.

The is much to question in NOAA's data. Siting of data points is bad. Land points are left out. "Heat Island Effect" is not accounted for in any meaningful way. The "science" is heavily politicized by Big Environmental. Big Media fails to report on anything that doesn't meet the "we're all going to die scenario". Climate has been much warmer and much colder without human involvement. GI-GO. A 0.0008% change in the atmospheric composition is enough to change the global economy over? 50 years of "good" data is adequate (i.e. 50 years of satellite data)? If we skeptics are wrong, yet we do nothing, the latest predictions for the next 50 years are far below catastrophic. If we are right, yet the world economy falls under onerous government command and control, we and our children will live lives that are "nasty, brutish and short".

I'm just sayin'.

Jill, I will never convince you and the other warmistas, the the next 30 years might.